Friday, October 29, 2010

Another great article by Charles Krauthammer...

The pull quote: "Obama thinks large. He wants to be a consequential president on the order of Ronald Reagan. His forthright attempt to undo the Reagan revolution with a burst of expansive liberal governance is the theme animating this entire election."

In a radio interview that aired Monday on Univision, President Obama chided Latinos who "sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.' " Quite a uniter, urging Hispanics to go to the polls to exact political revenge on their enemies - presumably, for example, the near-60 percent of Americans who support the new Arizona immigration law.

This from a president who won't even use "enemies" to describe an Iranian regime that is helping kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. This from a man who rose to prominence thunderously declaring that we were not blue states or red states, not black America or white America or Latino America - but the United States of America.

This is how the great post-partisan, post-racial, New Politics presidency ends - not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a desperate election-eve plea for ethnic retribution.

Ultimately, it will be up to the Republicans, aided by the Tea Party and other like minded groups, to communicate to the American people that we need to move back toward the original American exceptionalism that has made us the shining city on the hill. The debate needs to be framed in those terms. Do we want to be, like BHO says, no greater than any other country, or do we want to be the leaders? Do we want to become more like "them" (the socialized 'democrat' Europe type country) or would we like to maintain our American exceptionalism and keep them pursuing us as the leaders? And keep in mind it is not just the European nations, but China, India, and Brazil who are still (for now) pursuing us.